New guy here, hi!
I've tried LDing for about 2 months now, and one of the biggest hurdles I've been facing is my recall reaching a plateau.
My 'loadout' (and I haven't been slacking off): 8-10 hours of sleep every night, detailed DJing every day, 15 minute meditation before going to bed, reality checks. I don't drink or smoke weed very often (about once a month), and I'm not on any type of medication.
You'd think that those are ideal conditions, but after reaching a little high the first two weeks, my recall has now been in a rut for some time - often I barely remember one dream a night. I've already tried WBTB, and it seems to impede my recall instead of improving it.
Another thing that makes recall and journaling really hard is how abstract and elusive my dreams tend to be.
In addition to nonsensical plots, many of my dreams have a lot of 'features' that make them hard to grasp:
Time shifts. Either two different timelines intersect and act out at the same time, the dream segments are not in chronological order, or (and that happens a lot) my dream character warps back to an earlier point by 'loading a savegame'. Yes, I have played a lot of video games in my youth.
Glitches. Again, video games. The dream starts malfunctioning and my dream character does the savegame thing or even installs a patch or mod.
Identity shifts. My dream character changes fluidly through several identities, taking on those of other DCs or mixing personalities. So do other DCs, to a smaller extent.
Causal relations between things that are definitely not related. My brain tends to mix up concepts that don't have anything to do with each other. In one dream I heard a barber shop quartet sing a song (about how they'll put me behind bars for cannibalism) that was a jar of plum jam at the same time and all I could think of was that polyphonic plum jam is too fancy for me. These double meanings can be entertaining, but the more dimensions my brain adds, the harder they become to understand.
Sometimes, the dream has all of these, but manages to stay quite tame overall, but in some cases, I try recording it and fail because it's all over the place and my memory of it quickly collapses. Naturally, that's pretty frustrating.
I'd appreciate some stories, experiences, and advice. Thanks in advance!